Sukhdev Rajbhar set to become next Speaker

Umesh Raghuvanshi,
Lucknow

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Updated: May 18, 2007 05:01 IST

Senior Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Sukhdev Rajbhar would be declared elected as the next Speaker of the state assembly on Friday.

Rajbhar had emerged as a consensus choice for the post at a meeting that Chief Minister Mayawati had convened at her office on Wednesday. Seven sets of nomination papers proposing Rajbhar's name were filed today.

Those who proposed his name included the former chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, the BJP leaders Lalji Tandon, Om Prakash Singh, Congress leader Pramod Tiwari and the RLD leader Kokab Hamid. Yadav's decision to propose Rajbhar's name was in sharp contrast to SP's stand on Wednesday when the party leaders did not turn up at the all meeting convened by chief minister Mayawati.

Incidentally Chief Minister was not present when Yadav went to the principal secretary Vidhan Sabha's office to propose Rajbhar's name. Rajbhar though was also not present when the nomination papers were being filed leaders requested him to be present there. Rajbhar soon obliged and reached the principal secretary's office.

Meanwhile the four-member panel sworn in by the Governor TV Rajeshwar on Wednesday began administering oath of office to the members of the 15th Vidhan Sabha today. Besides the four members given oath on Wednesday 343 members were sworn in today. Those administered oath of office today included the pro-tem speaker Shyamdev Rai Chaudhary, former chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav and the members of council of ministers.